Day 5

This is the second post of the day, which will get us back on track with the 21-day challenge. I also wanted to update you all of a few prayer requests and answers we've had. I am taking these from comments people post, so some of you might have seen them by now.

Marlena: Praise! asked for prayer for her cancer and chemo side-effects and God is helping so much. After just one treatment her doctor can no longer feel her tumor and she will be having an ultrasound soon to get the official results. Pray every bit of cancer is gone, that the chemo side effects continue to reduce, that her energy increases and that the Lord will give her any guidance for future cancer-related decisions.

Crystal: Young, stage 4 girl we've been praying for. I haven't technically gotten an update but I think I would have if there was a big miracle, so let's keep praying for it! And pray that all her horrendous cancer-related ailments and problems will disappear!

Jenny: Praise! Had a mastectomy last week (cancer recurred) and the initial report showed no cancer in the lymph nodes, which would mean it didn't spread. Pray for continued, accurate results and that every trace of the cancer is gone.

Nancy: Has a recurrence of blood cancer called Multiple Myeloma. She has had a ton of health problems through much of her life and we just need to pray and believe every bit of this and all other attempts to destroy her body and mind will be thwarted.

Nina's Sister: This whole family has dealt with breast cancer! The mother and her twin had it and now at least two daughters. It's crazy to me that they can isolate genetic links but that thus far that's not actually helping with treatment. Anyway, please pray that everyone in the family will be completely healed and will learn to trust Him fully, and for them to completely bow to Him.

Teri: Praise! She was thrilled to learn there is no BRCA link to the cancer in her body, please keep praying for all the cancer to leave and for her energy and stamina to keep working and praising His name!

Cheryl: Mother of three, grandmother of two, is fighting stage 4 breast cancer. That is not too big for God, it's just a number. Pray He will heal her entirely, for His glory.

Please keep praying for Barbara H. as well as all the others I have been posting on here. I don't update the list entirely all the time to keep it a bit shorter.

Here are my thoughts on John 4: 1) I never noticed before that it wasn't Jesus who baptized. I wondered why so quickly looked it up. Seems like there isn't one perfect answer, but that people would have equated water baptism with salvation and maybe a few other thoughts. 2) I think it's funny that these disciples left everything to follow Him, are living entirely for this ministry, and then say, "Could someone have given Him food?". Really? Why were they so with it on some occasions and not the others? I suppose we have the Holy Spirit and learning history on our side and they didn't. 3) I don't really understand why Jesus answered the official's request by saying they wanted signs and wonders, but I guess they were asking for the healing as more of a test than a favor 4) I wish this healing story had more details. I don't think it's a matter of the official's great faith, because it wasn't until the boy was healed that the official saw the time and noted the miracle. I think if it was because of His faith it would have been worded more that he went off skipping and cheering because he knew he would be healed. I guess the official asked for it to see Jesus prove Himself, and that's what Jesus did. We don't want to need proofs like that, or put Him to the test. BUT it's encouraging to remember that if we really, honestly, want to know if He's real, He will show us. If you aren't sure today, ASK Him. It doesn't have to be for a huge miracle, which is sort of like putting Him through your own personal science experiment. But it's not too much to ask Him to show you something that would be meaningful to you. He knows you. He knows every hair on your head. He knows what would be a treasure or sign that would change everything for you, and He will do that! If you want to know more, I will email you a few things like that that He's done for me. I have lots, but because they were just for me it can be hard to explain in a brief blog post.

Are we having fun yet? Here is Day 5's reading.

John 5

    Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda[a] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”  “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

     The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.” But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?” The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.

    So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.  For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.

     “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.

    “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned. By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

     “If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who testifies in my favor,and I know that his testimony about me is true. “You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth.  Not that I accept human testimony;but I mention it that you may be saved. John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light.

 “I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to finish—the very works that I am doing—testify that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

    “I do not accept glory from human beings, but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

    “But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”